Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series (12 page)

Williams nodded. "My arm's all right."

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"Well, aren't you guys gonna win?"

Williams shrugged. "Don't you know, Sammy…anything can happen in baseball…"

Abe Attell's room at the Sinton Hotel was a scene of triumph. The big sample room #708 was crowded with his partners assorting piles of newly won money. Attell was glowing. This was an easier way to make a buck than going twenty bloody rounds with "Harlem Tommy" Murphy! There was $45,000 in front of him, $16,000 of which was his, and he drew a fast arithmetic picture of a five-game parlay, in brilliant multiples of 16,000, give-or-take a loss here and there. What tickled him most was that it had cost him nothing. Not a dime. That there were eight ballplayers out there waiting for him to pay off bothered him not at all. For the first time in his life he felt like a really smart man.

Sleepy Bill Burns had not seen the game. His wife had come north from Texas and they were visiting friends in Norwood, a suburb of Cincinnati. That evening, he drove back to town and stopped at the Sinton, to pick up Billy Maharg. It had been agreed that Maharg would take the first payment of $20,000

from Attell and deliver it to Gandil. Out of that sum, Burns would be apportioned a share equal to that of the players. Together with what he had bet, approximately $3,500, he, too, saw himself pyramiding his stake into a substantial sum.

Maharg was waiting for him in the lobby. They smiled and shook hands. Everything was going fine.

They went up to room #708 and confronted Attell.

But the Little Champ, Burns was quick to note, was not happy to see them. Burns simply asked him for the money for the players, and Attell, not so simply, refused him. He had his excuses ready, but he was not an accomplished liar. "The money is all out on bets, Bill," he said. "The players will have to wait!"

Burns got riled. He didn't like Attell, that dapper little Broadway character. His first reaction had been not to trust him. Now his suspicions were being verified.

Burns went after him. The ballplayers were relying on him, he said. They weren't going to throw ball games without getting their money.

Attell avoided him. He had a phone call to make.

Burns turned to Maharg, grunting his contempt. The two conspirators then left and made their way to Gandil's room. Their evening was not going to be a pleasant one.

When Burns bluntly told the players the disappointing news, they looked at each other, unable to think of anything to say. Burns told them they shouldn't worry. In the gambling world things like this happen.

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The cash goes out on bets: it takes time to rake it in. He felt sure they'd get their money tomorrow.

Gandil didn't like it and said so. He, too, felt a responsibility. Lefty Williams was scheduled to pitch the second game. You couldn't expect him to throw it without getting paid off! Burns allowed that this was true. He said he'd arrange for Gandil and Williams to meet with Attell the next morning, before the game. Williams would be assured that everything was being taken care of. Then Burns left the room as abruptly as he had left Attell's. His one comment to Maharg was that he was glad he wasn't a ballplayer any more.

Kid Gleason left the Sinton Hotel for dinner with his wife around eight o'clock. He had tried several times to see Charles Comiskey. He wanted desperately to talk to him. But Comiskey, as usual, was not available. At dinner, as a result, Gleason had eaten very little. His wife, who knew nothing of his suspicions, thought only that defeat was terribly hard for him. Well, they would win tomorrow.

Everything would be all right.

But Gleason's stomach was filling up with the juices of his rage. At the entrance to the Sinton, he told his wife he didn't want to go inside yet. He wanted to take a walk. She smiled sympathetically, and went in by herself. It was a mistake: she should not have left him.

Once he was alone, he became the prey of every sardonic wise guy who felt like getting in his licks:

"Hey, Gleason, that's some job you did out there today!"

"What a ball club! Nine bums and a dope to run'em!"

"Whattaya wanna bet you lose five straight!"

Gleason ignored them, or tried to. They followed him down the street, taunting him, baiting him. Their voices grew louder and closer. Nothing stopped them. It was as if they were gathering strength from his silence. Eventually he hated them too much to continue, and turned back to the hotel. His walk was over almost before it had begun.

Encouraged by this victory, his tormentors turned back with him. When he moved into the lobby, his blood was boiling. He saw Cicotte and Risberg, sprawled in big overstuffed chairs, laughing with a couple of strangers as if this was all a businessman's convention.

"Cicotte! Whattaya laughing at, eh?" he snapped.

For here suddenly was the real enemy, these two grinning faces, and he ripped into both players with a quick, uncontrollable torrent of words.

"You two think you can kid me? You busher, Risberg! You think I don't know what you're doing out file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html2/17/2004 11:47:46 AM

there? Cicotte, you sonovabitch! Anybody who says he can't see what you're doing out there is either blind, stupid, or a goddam liar!"

Then he realized what he'd done. He looked into the blanching faces of his two ballplayers, saw the thunderstruck reaction of maybe a hundred popeyed lobby idlers. A strong supporting hand on his arm drew him away. It was the newspaper writer, Hugh Fullerton.

"Come on, Kid," Fullerton was saying. "Tomorrow's another day."

Gleason, like a schoolboy who had just been caught cheating on a test, walked to the elevator and went up to his room.

Charles Albert Comiskey was a big man. Everything about him was big, especially his nose. In the baseball world, he was known as the "Old Roman" because of that nose. As a personality, he lived up to the grandeur of the title. Late this night, however, he was having his troubles. There were too many reports, not only from shoeshine boys, but from the so-called horse's mouth. For one, the Chicago gambler and sportsman, Monte Tennes, had come to him an hour before. He related as how Joe Pesch, a familiar gambling figure from St. Louis, had told him during the latter part of August that he'd been active in the baseball world and was expanding his influence. Pesch had claimed that he'd sewed up Gandil, Risberg, and Felsch, placing them on a payroll for $200 a week. For this, they supposedly threw one or two ball games a week. Pesch had hoped that Tennes might like to come in on such an arrangement. Tennes told Comiskey that he had not believed the story at the time. Gamblers were famous for handing out false reports as readily as sound ones. It was a world where everyone wanted to play the big shot. But tonight, Tennes was not so sure: he'd heard enough to make him question the honesty of the Series. Enough, he added, to bet a big chunk against Mr. Comiskey's ball club.

By the time the Old Roman was settled in his hotel suite, he'd heard a lot more. Everything was piling up on him. He was confronted with a frightening realization, permanent and irrevocable, like the sudden, blatant knowledge that one had an incurable disease. In all his life, he'd never really known anything like it, and it would be there to cope with tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, and on and on.

He tried to shake it off, to shut his mind to it so that it would go away. The evidence, such as it was, was far from conclusive. Perhaps he had allowed his suspicions to sway his judgment; perhaps he had read into that ball game today a meaning that was not valid at all. Perhaps, as the sportswriters were headlining, the White Sox were simply victims of overconfidence!

Comiskey was not in the habit of deluding himself. He was not going to delude himself now. It was well after eleven o'clock, but he went to the phone and called Kid Gleason, asking him to come up.

When the Kid arrived, Comiskey stared at that tormented face and knew what was on his manager's mind. Gleason reached into his pocket and withdrew a batch of telegrams. New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Havana. From gamblers, he explained, warning him that the Series was being fixed. "How do file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html2/17/2004 11:47:46 AM

you like that!" he cried. "I don't even know these guys!"

Comiskey wasn't interested in Gleason's telegrams: he had several of his own. He asked the Kid what he thought of that afternoon's game. Gleason restrained his anger and simply said that he'd never seen his club play like such a bunch of bushers. That wasn't exactly what Comiskey meant by the question. Point blank, he asked, "Do you think they're throwing the Series?" Gleason said he had no way of knowing.

Comiskey flared: "Answer me!" Gleason then admitted he felt there was something wrong, but he knew nothing for certain. In the last analysis, he just couldn't believe that the worst was happening. It was too fantastic. How could anyone do a thing like that?

Comiskey could have told him, but he didn't bother. He ordered him to keep his eyes and ears open.

They would talk about it again tomorrow.

The night was going to be a long one for the Old Roman. Sometime around 2:30 A.M., he decided that it was impossible to sleep. He had to face this problem, one way or another. But its gigantic implications tended to paralyze him. Could anyone do anything to stop such a frame-up? How could it be attacked without exposing the mess to the public? What was the smartest thing to do to protect baseball? To protect his own million-dollar investment?

Desperation drove him to action. He would turn this problem over to baseball's National Commission.

This Commission had been ruling baseball for seven years. Its chairman was Garry Herrmann.

Herrmann, to complicate matters, was also owner of the Cincinnati Reds. It would be impossible to confront him with this problem.

The proper official, therefore, was the President of the American League. His name was Byron Bancroft Johnson. But here, too, was an impossibility: Comiskey and Johnson were not on speaking terms. Their history—together and apart—had been a long and dramatic one. It had begun, ironically, in this very town, a quarter of a century before. Comiskey was managing the Cincinnati club for owner John T.

Brush in 1893. Ban Johnson, a few years out of college, was a young reporter for the
Commercial-Gazette
. They used to meet regularly at a tavern in Cincinnati's somewhat disreputable Vine Street, the Ten Minute Club (so named because every drinker was obliged to summon his waiter for another round every ten minutes). The two serious friends would drink and discuss the world of baseball, and here was spawned the idea for the formation of the American League.

It was Comiskey who was responsible for Johnson's executive career in baseball. In the autumn of 1893, Brush sent his manager on a scouting tour of the Southwest. There Comiskey saw great interest in reviving the recently disbanded Western League; eventually, he induced its members to reorganize, with Ban Johnson as President. Johnson ran the League so well that Comiskey left Cincinnati, bought a franchise in it, and ran a club in St. Paul. Connie Mack followed him at Milwaukee.

The Western League grew rapidly under Johnson's vigorous leadership. His ambition grew with it, file:///C|/Palm%20Stuff/Eliot,%20Asinof%20-%20Eig...tml]/Eight%20Men%20Out%20by%20Eliot%20Asinof.html2/17/2004 11:47:46 AM

spurred by the growing dissatisfaction with the whole National League operation.

The time was ripe for a rival league. Johnson met with millionaire coal magnate, Charles W. Somers, who was willing to put up a fortune to get it going. Johnson was elected president—again, largely through Comiskey's efforts—for a term of twenty years. In 1901, the American League went into operation.

It was inevitable that these two authoritarian figures should clash. Like Comiskey, Ban Johnson was a big man, mentally and physically. He weighed almost 300 pounds, but lived a vigorous, spirited life. He hunted from Canada to Mexico, much in the flamboyant manner of his contemporary, Teddy Roosevelt, whom he resembled. Descended from a long line of educators and ministers, he had a rigorous mind and a forceful, stentorian style of speaking. He was fond of poetry (he would recite "Barbara Frietchie" at the drop of a hat) and American military history (he could describe the strategy and action of all leading battles of the Civil War). He was also fond of conflict…so much so, in fact, that he was always at war.

Between Comiskey and his friend, there was reasonable harmony in the first years of the American League. In 1905, however, the rift began. Johnson saw fit to suspend one of Comiskey's ballplayers, James "Ducky" Holmes, for using abusive language to an umpire. Comiskey was furious, not so much for the suspension, but because he was not informed of it until a few minutes before game time.

Johnson snarled at Comiskey's protest. "If Comiskey doesn't like the punishment, he is at liberty to pull out of the American League. I regard the whole matter as closed!"

Comiskey stayed in the League. He merely pulled out of the office he'd been sharing with Johnson in the Fisher Building.

There were other incidents, trivial enough on the surface, yet irritants to such rival personalities. In 1907, in the heat of a tight pennant race, Comiskey's playing-manager, Fielder Jones, was suspended. He had earned the dubious honor (with Clark Griffith, an ex-Comiskey manager) of being ordered off the field more often than anyone in the majors. Coincident with this, Johnson sent Comiskey a dozen bass, the fruits of a successful fishing trip. Comiskey took it badly: "Does Johnson expect me to play fish in my outfield?"

(This fish story was repeated many times, inflated in importance as the key to the Comiskey-Johnson feud. In the course of recounting, it changed in size and flavor, as such stories often will. Many years later, it would turn up again in this form: It was Comiskey who had caught a giant trout, and as a peace offering, packed it in ice and sent it to Johnson. But the package was delayed, the weather inordinately hot, and by the time the trout reached Johnson, the smell was unbearable. Johnson, it was said, took it personally.)